Marchant family

Before M.L. Marchant

M.L. Marchant Sr., the first Marchant in the Greer area, came from a long lineage going back to early founding days of the colonies. Eight generations earlier, John Marchant III was born 1600 in Yoeville, Somerset, England. He came to the colonies, possibly via the Barbados, and was admitted as a freeman in Newport, Rhode Island on June 2, 1638. He went to Mt. Wollaston, Braintree, Massachusetts, and is mentioned living there in 1645, and made his way to Yarmouth, Barnstable, Massachusetts, where he is chosen Constable of Yarmouth on June 7, 1648. The full 8-generation record can be found in the GHM Ancestry.com Marchant family tree; along the way, the family name was just as commonly "Merchant."

So where did John Marchant III come from? His parents were John Marchant II and Joan Surbridge, who were married in Oxted, Surrey, England July 14, 1566. Beyond that, reports are sketchy and unreliable. Many in the family were engaged in the maritime industry, and John is variously referred to as "Captain" and "Lieutenant." How he relates to the Captain John Marchant who sailed with Sir Francis Drake on his West Indian Voyage, 1586, and stopped over at Roanoke on June 26, 1586, is unknown — but many amateur genealogists are happy to claim the connection, regardless, and many believe John Marchant II to be this Captain. We have not yet seen sources for that claim.

M.L. Marchant's father, John Wesley Marchant, was born in North Carolina but moved to Edgefield, SC where M.L. was born.

Martin Luther Marchant Sr., 1832-1897: the patriarch

M.L. Marchant was born August 14, 1832 in Eutawville, S.C. — a small town roughly halfway between Columbia and Charleston.

Richardson's History of Greenville County, South Carolina states: "For more than half a century the name of Marchant has stood out in the Greer community of Greenville County as a beacon light pointing to business success and professional integrity. Back in the days of the War Between the States Martin Luther Marchant was engaged in the manufacture of cotton for the Confederate army at the Batesville mill, located only a few miles from the present town of Greer. He and his wife, Mary (Smith) Marchant, were the parents of a family of boys who were to play a conspicuous part in the building of Greer."

He had come from Graniteville, the state's premier cotton factory, to work at Batesville, one of the oldest. By the beginning of the Civil War, M.L. was running the mill. During the war, he pushed the mill's operation to its top capacity producing fabric for confederate uniforms.

In January 1864, he bought 576 acres of land 22-18 for $7,000. That land is due east of Saluda, SC, about a quarter of the way from Saluda to Columbia. In March of that same year, he bought another 300 acres of land in Greenville County for TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! (!!!!), deed Z-940. That land is southeast of Greenville, a bit west and slightly south of Gray Court, S.C.

In January of 1874, he purchased two lots in the new town of Greer's Depot from William Shumate for $185 FF-352. From what I've found so far, these were the first lots sold in Greer that didn't get repossessed (possibly related to the railroad bank crash a few months earlier). These were lots 4 and 12 on Dickson's plat map. Lot 12 is the triangle of land that now holds Wild Ace Pizza & Pub; lot 4 is now the parking lot behind CBT and some of the lot across from Wild Ace. In November of 1884, he purchased another small piece of land across Randall from the triangle; that plot is now CSX (P&N) railroad tracks and right-of-way.

In May of 1889, he bought lot 35 from William Shumate VV-121; this was on the other side of the tracks, which is now part of the Victor baseball field at the corner of Park and Moore. At some point previously he had bought the rest of the field, because he sold that half to T.W. Wood in February of 1889 YY-189.

Martin was one of the twelve founding principals of the Victor Manufacturing Company in 1895. Of those, he was the most knowledgeable and experienced in mill operations. Though he passed away before the mill opened for business, Victor Mill thrived to become a model of mill operation and, eventually, grew so large that Greer's Trade Street could have fit inside its enormous facility.

Somehow, he also kept farming and set records for cotton production. In 1890, he was the top cotton producer in the county; he picked and ginned 24 bales from 25 acres with about a bale left to be done, raised with one mule; he also raised corn, wheat, oats, and meat. "He is a great believer in homemade manure and uses it almost exclusively." In 1889, he raised 48 bales on 52 acres. (Anderson Intelligencer, Jan. 9, 1890, p.4) After he died, his wife Mary continued operation of his farm.

• Dr. Robert Lee Marchant 1866-1933 [Emma Wham]
• Martin Luther, Jr. Marchant 1868-1936 [Sallie Leona Few, then Kathleen Morrah]
• William Wesley Marchant 1873-1928 [Julie Agnes Wood]
• Nancy “Nannie” Marchant 1875-1919 [Benjamin Few Zimmerman]
• Clara Marchant 1878-1927 [Malcolm Clifton “Cliff” Davenport]
• Thomas Mood Marchant 1880-1939 [Jessie P. Speed]
• Mary Bessie Marchant 1882-1898
• (Mary) Louise Marchant Oct 1, 1885-Sept 25, 1959 [Arthur Hallam Cottingham, Sr.]. Mary Louise Marchant went by the nickname "Kate" as a child and through her college years; she appears to have changed to "Louise" around the time of her marriage. Some ancestry.com family trees also list her with the name "lilyann," but we don't know where that came from and have found no evidence of it being used.

Dr. Robert Lee Marchant and Emma Wham

R.L. Marchant was born in the Batesville community and went to school in Batesville and in Greer. He graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine with an M.D. He moved back to live with his mother in the family home near Pelham and began work as a "country doctor" (primarily making house calls around the agricultural communities), and did this for five years. He then moved to Greer about 1898, opened a general practice, and remained there until his unexpected death in 1933. He married Emma Wham about 1893. A Mr. Wham came to Greer in 1900 to work for the Westmoreland-Marchant Drug Co., likely her father John Wham; her mother Elvira Wham was living with them in 1910.

Westmoreland-Marchant Drug Co. reflects that Dr. Marchant partnered with Dr. Henry Varias Westmoreland, who had been practicing in the Greer area for many years prior to the town's formation. At that time, there were no hospitals or doctor’s clinics in the area. Doctors either did house visits, had an office in their home, or ran a pharmacy and saw patients there. In October, 1902 the company moved to 220 Trade Street, a narrow building just to the right of Smith & James (we are not certain of the prior location). There's an interesting ad for the company placed in the November 10, 1903 edition of Greenville News, promoting a miraculous blood-purifying elixer called "V.V.V." H.V. Westmoreland seems to have left the business, as a 1904 photograph shows the building signage to simply read "Marchant's Pharmacy" and I have found no further record of the joint business.

The October 20, 1910 issue of Manufacturer's Record shows that Robert awarded a building contract to J.C. Cunningham of Greer for the construction of a 3-story business building: 28x90 feet, ordinary construction; cost $8,500; plans by Thomas Keating, Greer." This building, on the corner of Trade and Victoria Streets, was the only 3-story building in downtown Greer until 2022, when the Hampton Inn opened. It was called the "Marchant Building" and housed the Greer Drug Company, of which he was a founding partner. The building came to be commonly known as the Rexall Drug, simply because of a Rexall sign on the building. The first floor held Marchant's pharmacy; the second floor was doctor and dentist offices (there was not yet a hospital or medical clinic in Greer); the third floor was used by Bailey's Masonic Lodge.

Robert also served as a vice president of the Bank of Greer. The Marchants lived in a large home on Trade Street for several years, before moving to their final home on Church Street.

• Hortense Marchant, 1893-1971 (William Stallworth)
• Mary Lucille Marchant, 1894-1975 (William Sheib)
• John Luther Marchant, 1896-1938 (Mildred Thompson)
• Fitzhugh Lee Marchant, 1898-1943 [Gertrude Thompson -Mildred and Gertrude were sisters]

Martin Luther, Jr. and Kathleen Morrah (and Sallie Few)

M.L. attended school in Batesville, then in the Greer Graded School. Tom and Luther with several others, including Ellie Few and E.C. Bailey, sang special music at the Methodist church. The newspaper called out Tom as having a particularly gifted, good voice. The Greenville News, Tuesday, October 15, 1901. He went on to college at the Wofford Finishing School in Spartanburg.

He married twice: Sallie Leona Few, 1870–1898; and Kathleen Morrah, 1890–1971. It amazes me that this man had two wives, one of which died in 1898 and the other in 1971. Kathleen was 22 years younger than him.

We know little about his first wife, Sallie Few. She was from another prestigious family in Greer; her father was a doctor who ran a pharmacy right in the center of town; her brother famously became first president of Duke University. She had a younger sister, Ellie, who was a popular socialite. Ellie is listed in every party, celebration, club, activity, and organization… Sallie is listed in none of them. She died young, before having any children.

Katherine Morrah was a socialite herself; she grew up in Mt. Carmel. She attended Converse College, where she became close friends with Jessie Speed — who would become her sister-in-law. At Converse she was active and engaged in many student organizations. How she ended up marrying a man double her age is unknown; perhaps Jessie played a role in it. In any case they married Sept. 2, 1913.

After college, M.L. began work as a clerk at the mercantile of John W. Baker in Batesville, just outside Greer. He then entered the cotton business in Greer with A.F. "Frank" Burgess (the Burgesses were another high-power family in Greer). He moved to Athens, Georgia for a while and worked in cotton there, eventually returning to Greer and continuing his work with Burgess. When Lewis Parker was made president of Victor Mill in Greer about 1901, M.L. was hired to be the mill's cotton buyer. He remained in that position for two years, functioning as the cotton-buyer for not just Victor but also Monaghan and Apalache Mills. He became a director of Victor Mill in 1904. In July of 1904, he partnered with W.A. Gilreath to form W.A. Gilreath & Co., a cotton brokerage firm based in Greenville.

This new venture required him to sever his position with the mills, since he would be in competition. It was at this time that he moved from Greer to Greenville. This did not last long, however; in 1905 he became VP of Victor Mill, and returned to Greer. During this time, he helped found the Bank of Greers with his brother-in-law Cliff Davenport, and was a director of the bank. In 1909, while remaining VP at Victor Mill, he joined with his brother-in-law, B.F. Zimmerman, as founding partners with Lewis Parker of the Beaver Dam mills in Edgefield; Zimmerman moved there to run the plant. In 1911 Victor Mill became part of the huge Parker Cotton Mills Company and was elected Second Vice President. With this change he moved back from Greer to Greenville. He remained in that position until the company was dissolved in 1918. He returned to the cotton business, connected with the W.E. Mason & Company in Greenville; after five years there, he became a Greenville agent for the George H. McFadden & Company, one of the largest cotton firms in the world at the time.

In August 1910, M.L. purchased a Stephens-Duryea touring runabout car for $3,500 — a breathtaking price at a time when a house could be purchased for $1,000. We believe this vehicle appears in a photograph in our collection. In June 1911, just ten months later, the car was destroyed in a fire at a repair shop; there was no insurance on it, and it was a total loss.

In 1913, Thomas Parker resigned as president of both Victor mill and Monaghan mill; Thomas Marchant was elected president over each of them with M.L. Marchant named vice president.

• Martin Luther Marchant, III, 1914-2005 (Josephine Owens)
• John Bradley Marchant, 1918-1979 (Anne)
• Mary Marchant, 1920-1999 (Edward Burdette)
• Francis Morrah Marchant (Sr.), 1921-2016 (Mary Cowan)

Benjamin and Nannie Marchant Zimmerman

From roughly 1897-1909, B.F. Zimmerman was the cotton buyer for Victor Mill. In July 1909, Lewis Parker purchased the Edgefield Manufacturing Company, which contained a cottonseed oil factory and a textile factory; B.F. Zimmerman became manager of the mill. B.F. Zimmerman joined with ML Marchant Jr. as founding partners with Lewis Parker of the Beaver Dam mills in Edgefield; he became treasurer and general manager. Benjamin arrived at Edgefield in August; his family joined him a month later. This was a very successful venture for him. Eventually he became head of the cotton departments of Spartan and Drayton Mills in Spartanburg, where he worked for another 28 years.

• Marchant LeGrand Zimmerman, 1897-1953 (Francis Anderson)
• Rosa Few Zimmerman, 1903-1998 (Samuel T. Reid)

Nannie died in 1918, and in 1923 Benjamin married Minnie J. Adams.

William and Agnes Wood Marchant

We know relatively little about William Marchant or his wife, Agnes. They had had two sons. Their younger son died at age 11, and only 4 months later, William was drafted to WWI. William and Agnes later divorced and she remarried.

March 27, 1901 he was making plans to open a laundry with J. Verne Smith; apparently the plan changed because the two men opened a wholesale business in 1902 carrying Armour products.

In 1910 the family composed a “jolly camping party” on a 20-day trip to Brevard with the I.M. Wood family.

In 1912, he went to Atlanta and returned with a (train) carload of mules, reported as the finest mules ever seen in Greer.

In Oct., 1913, accepted the position of outside superintendent of the Monaghan Mill in Greenville. Family moved to Greenville in 1914.

Arrested and fined $5 for being drunk in 1915.

In 1918, at age 45, he registered for the draft; his registration form shows that at the time, he was in Norfolk, Virginia working as a carpenter for Porter Brothers Contractors. Agnes remained back in Greenville, and was working at Monaghan Mill. He was still working as a contractor in Virginia in late 1920, when another carpenter was arrested and then convicted of forging checks with William's signature.

Arthur and Louise Marchant Cottingham

We know relatively little about Louise Marchant Cottingham. She attended Columbia Women's College and was active in the Columbia College Club; she was active in the Women's Society of Christian Service at her church, Buncomb Street Methodist.

A. H. Cottingham Sr. Was originally from Dillon. He attended Clemson; after graduation in 1904 he worked at the Victor Mill in Greer, then took a position as overseer in the card room of Ottaray Mill in Union; then he took over as mill superintendent. He moved from there to become superintendent of the Apalache Mill in Greer in August, 1911. Just months later he moved back to Union to be supervisor of Monarch Mills. While there, the mill doubled in size and A.H. became highly respected in the industry.

In 1917, he became general manager of the Victor-Monaghan Mills. The huge company was almost a Marchant family business: at one point T.M. Marchant was president, ML Marchant was treasurer, and A.H. Cottingham general manager.

A 1920 article notes that he was president of the Greer Textile Mill Baseball League. He was a director of the YMCA.

• Arthur Hallam Cottingham, Jr., 1911-1993 (Marjorie Roberts)
• Marchant Colin Cottingham, 1914-2005 (Caroline Blackmon)
• John Luther Cottingham, 1918-1918
• Walter Lee Cottingham, 1919-2008 (Helen Dale Parrish)
• Mary L. Cottingham, 1924-2008 (Dick Newkirk)

Thomas Mood and Jessie Speed Marchant

Thomas was born in Batesville and went to school there. He did not attend college but did take an additional business course. He was first employed by Victor Mill in Greer as an office boy, but showed aptitude for textiles and rapidly advanced.

In 1910-1911, Thomas was president of Ottaray Mills in Union, SC. During that time he became a director of the Union Chamber of Commerce, then helped found the Union County Fair company and became chairman of the site committee. He also participated in newsworthy automobile ride, in which the driver was a 13-year-old boy.

In July of 1912, Jessie Speed, from Abbeville and one of Converse College's “most attractive graduates,” hosted a dozen members of her book club for a luncheon and presented them with a puzzle: at each plate was a printed card which simply read "Speed Marchant Oct 1912." This was her way of announcing her engagement to T.M. Marchant. I found Jessie as a sophomore in the Converse yearbook from 1908; then as a junior in 1909, elected class poet, and serving with Kathleen Morah, who would become her sister-in-law. Unfortunately, she is not in the 1910 yearbook, when she would have been a senior (and had a photograph). She is referenced in the senior class prophecy, though, so she did attend that year, and apparently graduated.

In December 1910 the Parker Mills merger of 9 plants was proposed; in that, T.M. was named as one of three proposed vice presidents. An article on the proposed merger stated that T.M. was young but had first-hand specialized knowledge of textile processes and was entitled to be called a textile engineering expert. In Sept 1911 he was named vice president of the Wallace Mills in Greenville. In late 1911, Thomas Marchant moved from Union to Greenville, where he became employed at the Victor-Monaghan Company. In 1913, Thomas Parker resigned as president of both Victor mill and Monaghan mill, and Thomas was elected president over each of them with M.L. Marchant named vice president. On June 30, 1923, he was elected president and treasurer of the Victor-Monaghan Company, which comprised 8 mills in the Greenville area. Though I've not tracked all the details of the company changes, it grew into a larger organization with mills across the southeastern US; he became president of that whole company in 1925, following the death of his predecessor William F. Beattie. At that point he was considered perhaps the most powerful textile mill businessman in the state. In addition to his work at Victor-Monaghan, he was also President of the Wallace Manufacturing Company of Jonesville, SC; VP of Marion Manufacturing Company in Marion, NC; and a director of both the First National Bank of Greenville and the Greer Bank and Trust Company of Greer.

He was elected twice as president of the South Carolina Cotton Manufacturer's Association, was a member of the Board of Governors of the American Cotton Manufacturer's Association, and was vice-president of the Cotton Textile Institute.

In 1920 T.M. purchased a historic hotel in downtown Greenville, the Alexandria. It had reached its end of life, with its reputation destroyed by soldiers from Camp Sevier using it for romantic trysts; in turn he sold it to the YWCA, who used it until the building was condemned in 1940.

At one point in his life, he seemed to have a habit of letting dogs stray and then running newspaper ads for them. This included ads for pointer "Kate" and setter "Jake" in July 1916; setter "Jack" in July 1919; setter "Vick" in Feb. 1920; setter "Jennie" in Nov. 1920; pointer "Jack" in Dec. 1920... and a Jersey cow, in Dec. 1918!

He died of a heart attack just after the end of a Clemson-Wake Forest football game in 1939. Jessie died less than six months later.

• Thomas Mood Marchant, Jr. (1915-2001)
• Preston Speed Marchant (1918-2003)

Cliff and Clara Marchant Davenport

Malcolm Clifton “Cliff” Davenport was the son of D.D. Davenport, Greer’s first millionaire. He started out in the retail business with his father's general-goods store. He soon became a partner with W. Terry Wood in the firm Davenport & Wood, another retail venture selling dry goods and notions. He made multiple trips to NY to buy dry goods and notions for the store.

At least two of those trips he went with women who were buying women's clothing and millinery. Perhaps because of that influence and experience, he started the Ladies' Store (yes, that was its name). It was the store in Greer for women's fine clothing and goods before Alta Cunningham's store opened. A Columbia newspaper called him "a leading young merchant of the Piedmont" in 1910.

He continued taking trips to NY, buying fine women's clothing and hats. At least two articles about his trips mention Alta going to NY at the same time as a buyer for another store, so it's almost certain these trips were instrumental in developing the skills to supply her own store a few years later.

About ten men united to form one of Greer's first newspapers, the Greer News-Leader, in 1910 (about 7 years before the Citizen was formed). M.C. was a director and was elected president.

M.C. was significantly instrumental in the petition to create a new county, Highland County, between Greenville and Spartanburg. He was one of four county commissioners registered in that effort, which made it all the way to the governor's desk.

He was engaged in politics and a regular delegate to the Democratic convention. He was active with the Shriners and attended regional (and maybe national) conventions.

Unfortunately, Cliff died very young. On a fishing trip, he fell in the river and got sick; he died of influenza, leaving his young wife and five children behind. WK Hill purchased the Ladies’ Store and ran it beside the Men’s Store in the Davenport Building on Trade Street.

Clara donated money to the Methodist church for the construction of a Sunday School building, which was named in her honor. At her death, Clara left $1,000 for the building of a city library, and her children gave $5,000 plus a piece of land from D.D.'s estate. It came to be called the "Davenport Memorial Library." Prior to this new building, the Greer library had been in a small one-room wooden shack with a pot-bellied stove in the middle. She also left $1000 to Wofford College, and $500 to Seaborn "Sebe" Lynch, a Black gardener who had served D.D. Davenport, Miss Clara, and then Miss Constance.

• Constance Davenport 1901-1982 [Oscar Earle Dooly Jr]
• Malcolm Clifton Davenport Jr. 1903-1972 [Maude Givens]
• David D. Davenport 1904-1906
• Luther Marchant "Pete" Davenport Sr. 1907-1987 [Dorothye Romaine Lincoln Barnes]
• Thomas West Davenport 1910-1911
• Martha Ann Davenport 1912-2003 [Robert S Edmund (Edward) Josephy]
• Daniel Denby Davenport 1914-1969 [Ruby Ellen Wiggins]

[category:People]